


Another Life

by Palebluedot



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers Endgame, Endgame Fix-It, Established Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Time Travel Fix-It, endgame spoilers, mentions of alternate timeline Steve/Peggy, missing moment: bucky and steve speaking AT ALL at the end there, taking a note from canon and just gleefully fucking with the laws of causality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 14:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18606091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Palebluedot/pseuds/Palebluedot
Summary: "Hey, you," he says as he sits.~~~Or, it's been a long, long time, indeed.(ENDGAME SPOILERS)





	Another Life

As Sam walks away, bewildered and proud, Bucky steps forward. He doesn't feel the grass bend beneath his feet as he walks, and he doesn't spare a look over his shoulder, doesn't need to. Everyone else, it seems, has the good sense to hang back. Or maybe they're just too dumbfounded to do otherwise. After all, they didn't know this was coming. 

"Hey, you," he says as he sits. 

Steve's face crinkles, that's the first thing Bucky sees. Wrinkles all over, skin all lined with them, whole face pale and gray and smiling. "Hey yourself," Steve says, and his voice is the same, but softer. 

Bucky swallows. He doesn't even try to put a name to what he's feeling now, looking at him — recognition, relief, shock, grief, all these things could fit, and yet don't quite. But Steve keeps on smiling at him, and that warmth he knows the name of well. "So," he says, and knows Steve will forgive him for his voice going thick, "you were happy?" 

Steve ducks his head, nods, and oh, those eyes give away the answer before he even speaks. In another life, Bucky would've reached out, traced the pad of his thumb across the lines fanning out from the corners, but in that other life, the lines were never that deep, and Bucky just can't look away. How many times did he imagine Steve looking like this — just like this, but smaller — only for his stomach to twist and banish the image at the thought of some sickness stealing it away? Now here he is, right in front of him, a full life under his belt at last, and his eyes are telling Bucky it was a happy one. There's not two people alive who've walked more circles around growing old together than they have, but here, Bucky's grateful in his blood and in his bones that he got to see Steve at least grow _old._ "Yeah, Buck," he says. "I _am_ happy." 

"Okay. Then you know I am, too." Bucky smiles back, and his vision goes watery, just for a second. He blinks it away, then wishes he hadn't. Gathering the courage to open his mouth is hard enough without having to see the words land. "And...him?" 

Five seconds, seventy years, somewhere in between — Steve takes his hand and says, "I promised I'd get you out of there, didn't I?" and the longest wait of Bucky's life ends at last. 

Bucky's voice breaks. "Yeah?" 

"They didn't lay a hand on you," says Steve, his words gathering strength, "you never forgot a thing. We got you out, took them down, and we were happy. Just like we talked about. All of us were." He squeezes Bucky's hand with fierce, familiar devotion. "Right until the end."

Something swells in Bucky's chest, and he thinks he knows the name of this feeling, too. Relief, relief, relief — it breaks over him like a wave. This other version of himself, who lived his life apart from him, is as distant as the first one Steve knew, shared roots, inaccessible, blotted out by memory and time. But he was _there_ , finally brought down from that cold mountain. What could have been, should have been, _was._

"Thank you," Bucky whispers through a clumsy throat. "For going back for me." 

Steve shakes his head. "I should be thanking you for letting me go." 

Bucky laughs, a shaky thing. "Maybe we should just call it even," he says, and knows they really are standing on shared ground. A life free of pain — it is the only gift they have ever wanted to give each other. The cost has never mattered. 

"Deal." He holds Bucky's hand in both of his, now, the one with the ring and the one without. "I missed you, you know. I loved him, and loved her, and we _were_ happy, but I missed you." 

Warmth again, flowing thick and sweet as honey in his veins. Love, it seems, has noticed little change at all. "I missed you too, you sap." 

Steve furrows his brow. "Hasn't it only been five seconds for you?" 

Bucky shrugs. "Felt more like ten." 

Steve laughs then, really laughs, and the brightness of it ripples out across the water. "Fair enough," he concedes.

"Maybe sometime you can tell me more about, you know, the rest of it," says Bucky, because that sound has always made him brave. "Just, not now." 

Steve gives him a hint of a sly smile. "Aw, hell, don't you have anything better to do than to sit around and listen to an old bat like me?" 

Years be damned, Steve's expressions haven't changed much at all. Plain as day, Bucky can read both the mischief and the worry hidden underneath. "Don't tell me you're going senile already," he says, fitting an arm around his shoulder — thinner than they once were, but not as thin as they used to be. "I said until the end of the line, didn't I? It's not the end yet." 

Slowly, Steve crumples, sinks into Bucky's side as though falling through water. Bucky catches him, easy. He's had practice holding the same soul wrapped in a different body, after all. Bucky's neck catches Steve's shaky breathing, the wetness from his eyes, and he kisses the top of his gray head. "There, now," he murmurs. "You made it. We both did. Let's just take the rest as it comes, huh?"

Steve's arms tighten around Bucky, or maybe Bucky's tighten around Steve. Doesn't matter, neither of them is letting go. "Yeah," says Steve, muffled by the bundled shape they make, "let's see what happens next."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm thankful for that carte blanche the time travel exposition granted us with re: the whole thing about how changing the past doesn't equal changing the future, which, as you can see, I picked up and absolutely booked it with.
> 
> Comments are love <3


End file.
